Sarah Cottrell: Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. On this show, I interview former lawyers to hear their inspiring stories about how they left law behind to find careers and lives that they love. Let's get right to the show.

Hello everyone. This week I'm sharing my conversation with Shunta Grant. Shunta left legal practice in 2015 to run her then side hustle Because of Zoe Design full-time. She since started a second business teaching women how to build businesses on the other side of busy and is launching a third business, the Best Today brand to help all women learn how to build lives on the other side of busy.

I just want to mention that if you're interested in getting your hands on one of the best today guides that Shunta mentions in the podcast, today, March 16th is the first day that you can pre-order the guide at besttodayguide.com. I'm not an affiliate or anything, I just think it sounds cool.

Before we get to my conversation with Shunta, I want to remind you that my confidential support community for high-achieving women in their first decade-ish of practice, The Former Lawyer Collaborative is going to be beta launching this Friday, March 20th. This will be a place for you to connect with like-minded women, not on Facebook. As a member of The Former Lawyer Collaborative, you will get access to that private community bi-weekly Zoom workshops on topics including rewriting your resume for non-legal jobs, career coaching, budgeting, dealing with student loans, guest experts, Q&As with podcast guests, and more.

All those things will be recorded so that if you can't make it live, you can still get access to the information. Then we'll also be doing monthly mastermind-style hot seats on Zoom where you can get live feedback and support from me and the rest of the group on whatever issues are coming up for you. You can join the waitlist today to be the first to know when the doors open so you can be among the first to apply and take advantage of the limited-time founding member rate which will be available from March 20th until the 1st of April. I'm really excited to share my conversation with Shunta with you so let's get to the conversation.

Hey, Shunta. Welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast.

Shunta Grant: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Sarah Cottrell: Let's start with you introducing yourself to the listeners.

Shunta Grant: Sure. Hi. My name is Shunta Grant. I am among many things a mom to two, a former lawyer as you probably guessed from being on this podcast, but right now I fill my days when I'm not being a mom, a friend, a daughter with helping women build business and life on the other side of busy. That is where I find a lot of joy and purpose right about now. I've been doing that for, I don't even know, three years now. I left the practice of law in September of 2015.

Sarah Cottrell: Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about how you ended up going to law school in the first place. What drew you to law school?

Shunta Grant: This is funny. I think it's a little bit of fate in high school. I wanted to run for student council my freshman year and there was a morning where you're supposed to go in and there was going to be an informative meeting about student council, what it is, how to sign up, all these things. You listen to other people who've done it before. I go into this classroom thinking I'm going to sit to learn about student council and a few minutes in the meeting I realized, “This is not talking about student council,” it was for something called mock trial which I'd never heard of.

But I stayed in the meeting and I listened and it sounded pretty cool. I ended up going back to these mock trial meetings and auditioning, trying out for mock trial. I was a natural. I was a freshman and I beat out seniors for lead attorney roles, had never heard anything about mock trial, didn't know what it was. I just knew when I read the materials in my mind, all these great questions came up about, “No, ask this, ask this.” I found this new competence and skill that I didn't know was there had been latent I believe and just waiting for this opportunity and I loved it.

The funny thing is you'd think that's the thing that made me want to go to law school but I applied to college actually pre-med. I actually had a biology scholarship to one of the schools I applied to and it wasn't until after I had been exception to college in the summer before actually going when I thought, “What if I actually do something that I'm good at?” I never really associated that with choosing your profession.

I just thought it would be really cool to be an obstetrician, that's what I was going to do. But I didn't think about the fact that I didn't like science, don't like the sight of blood, cry when other people cry. I don't think the medical profession is really what I wanted but I didn't put two and two together that you should do something that you already are good at and really enjoy.

My mom says all this time, she knew I was going to be a lawyer. She saw my fire, my passion, my love of mock trial and that's actually what led me to the college I went to. I went from university and I walked in and saw this huge gavel and knew that they were national champs. I was like, “Yeah, this is where I'm going to be going here. This is where I'm going.”

It was just my love of litigation, love of being in a courtroom that made me think, “Maybe I can do this lawyer thing.” So I went to college, applied to law school, and that's my story that really got me into thinking being a lawyer would be really fulfilling and fun.

Sarah Cottrell: That's so interesting because well one, there have been a lot of people on the podcast who basically were like, “Well, I was on the path to med school and then I realized I didn't like the sight of blood and that was probably not a great option,” so that is definitely a common experience. I'm wondering, did you continue to do mock trial in law school?

Shunta Grant: Yes, well actually I did more moot court in law school because it was a challenge. I felt like after you do mock trial in college, it's like playing a sport in college, very much like playing a sport in college. You've done it for so long, the challenge was that there is much and so moot court for me was something that had more of a superior I guess, prestige to it. That's the word.

It was something that was very different for me so it was challenging. I did more moot court but I did do a few mock trial like competition, like the competitions but I didn't join the mock trial team in law school. I did more moot court again because I felt like it presented a new challenge for me and I loved it. Again, just the opportunity to challenge myself to argue and have to think on my feet, I really love that.

Sarah Cottrell: In law school, you loved moot court, you've loved mock trial in the past so you're definitely thinking, “Litigation, that's what I want to do.” One of the things we talk about on the podcast often is some people get to law school and they just love every minute of it. They graduate and they think, “This is going to be awesome.”

Other people get to law school and they're like, “I'm not so sure about this lawyer thing but I'm still going to do this,” and they graduate hoping that they're going to like it and then basically have this realization they don't. Talk to me a little bit about your experience with that and what you ended up doing after you first graduated.

Shunta Grant: I loved law school. Minus exams, I love law school. I loved outlining. I loved sitting on the first or second row. I loved the challenge again of the format of being taught. It was nerve-wracking, it was scary, don't get me wrong but I actually really liked law school minus the exams. That part, the pressure there was a lot.

If I could just do law school without the exams, which is why I actually thought I was going to be a law school professor, I'll take it all day, I loved it minus a few classes that I didn't love. But overall, it confirmed for me that this was something I really wanted to do. There were times where it was extremely stressful because I'm so competitive but it continued to fuel my natural competitive drive, my desire to be challenged, and my desire to show up in new ways which is what I do now and help women do just outside of the law.

For me, the whole law school process was a positive one. Right after, I actually clerked for a judge which is exactly what I do. I had this checklist of “These are the things you should do as a high achiever.” I want to make sure I got a law review, I did that. I wanted to make sure that I did moot court. I did that. I was a TA. I did that. What else was on that? It's just this list of things I wanted to get a federal clerkship so I did that.

Right out of law school I had a federal clerkship with the district court judge here in Greenville, South Carolina which is where I am currently living still. I did that for two years right out of law school.

Sarah Cottrell: Got it. One of the things that I try to do on the podcast is help people who become lawyers thinking they're going to really like it but ultimately end up deciding they want to leave feel less alone when they hit that point of, “Ah, yeah, I don't know if this is for me.” Can you talk to me about your experience with the clerkship and then in legal practice? At what point you started to think, “Hey, maybe this is not what I actually want to do for the rest of my life”?

Shunta Grant: After clerking for two years, I went to a law firm in Greenville, South Carolina also and also to set the scene, I graduated in 2008. If anybody remembers 2008, it was not the best time to be coming out of anybody's school so I was happy to have that two-year clerkship. I actually had offers to firms in Atlanta because that's where I spent my summers, my dream firm which I always wonder what would have happened to my life if I went there.

I had an offer from this amazing firm called Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore in Atlanta and I just loved them. It was a small boutique firm filled with geniuses and I mean geniuses. They do high-quality work. But my husband ended up getting a job in Greenville. We ended up staying in Greenville because it was just easier for me to find a job.

I ended up taking a position at a firm here that I never spent a summer with in Greenville and everything was fine because again, I was thinking in terms of just checking the box like this is what I went to school for, now you go to the law firm, and you do the thing until you decide to move to the thing you really want to do. Because I think very few people, I could be wrong, but very few people desire to just stay in a law firm forever and ever. At least none of the people that I know.

I went to the firm and then a few years after that in 2013, we had my daughter. Again, everything was fine, did the 12 weeks, you go back to work, you do the things, all fine. It was really for me the defining moment, I still remember this story and I get a little sick because as I tell it, my body is already starting to react and respond because it takes me right back to this place.

In 2015, something happened. My relationship with my boss just changed. Something about his mannerisms or his personality shifted where he became a micromanager. The quality of the work just wasn't great. I didn't love it so I wasn't giving it my best. I didn't think it was worthy of a lot and so it was just so many different factors that really started to weigh on me to the point where I remember Sunday nights, it would be like a wonderful Sunday and then around like three, four o'clock, my mood would change.

I'm feeling that feeling right now and it was like a gray cloud hanging over my head because tomorrow was Monday and I had to go back to a place where I was not fulfilled, excited about because of the work, because of the people I was working with. Granted the people were also the best parts of it as I'll share but some people were also the worst part of it.

I remember working on a project that I was really excited to work with on a client that I really enjoyed and actually got to have a real relationship with. We were working on an arbitration preparing for that and I knew we were headed out of town for my niece's graduation. I hadn't seen them in years because they moved to Orlando around the time that I was going to law school.

I only saw them maybe once a year but we were going to spend real time with them watching my niece graduate, my first niece to graduate from high school and I turned in all my work early to make sure like, “Okay, reminder, I'm out of town. Reminder, I'm out of town. Reminder, I'm out of town.”

We also had one of my co-workers was getting married and I was so excited. We actually pushed leaving for Florida so that we can make her wedding and the day of her wedding, that's when my inbox gets flooded with work so I missed her wedding. The drive down to Orlando, I was working, I was under a blanket for calls, the mornings after, I would tiptoe away from family to get on calls.

I remember that May of 2015 as we were driving from Orlando, Florida back up to Greenville, South Carolina, which is a long drive looking to the left to my husband and I remember saying, “I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving this year. Nope, no more.” I build more on that trip as if I was in the office and it just showed me no one cares. I choose not to live my life this way and it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Like I said, that was May 2015 that arbitration ended. I want to say either late August, early September and I left September maybe a week or two after that arbitration ended. I knew I just could not anymore.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that story is unfortunately such a common experience for so many lawyers to the point where—and this is something we talk about a lot on the podcast—it gets normalized within the practice of law, the idea that you would miss significant events or end up having to do some crazy amount of working while you're trying to be with family or whatever, I think it's very common to the point where I think when people are experiencing it, they almost sometimes feel like, “Oh, what's wrong with me that this bothers me?” Does that make sense?

Like, “Oh, I must just not be whatever," instead of having the experience that you had which is seeing it for what it is and saying, “This is just not for me.” There are a couple of other things you mentioned that often come up in the conversations on the podcast. One is this checking-the-boxes idea where a lot of people go to law school, they're super high achievers, they check the boxes, check the boxes, and then all of a sudden they get to a point where either there are no more boxes to check or “I don't know where I'm supposed to be going next.”

Or they realize, “Oh, I checked all these boxes but I didn't really ask myself if do I actually want to be checking all the boxes.” I think a lot of people will relate to that and for sure, the Sunday experience, I had it. I know it's so common where people get to Sunday evening and they're just like, “I don't want to go to go to the office.”

One of the things that people struggle with I know is this like, “Well, what do I do next? How do I figure out what to do next and how will the people around me react to the idea that I am going to leave and don't want to do this anymore?” Can you tell me a little bit more about what you did before and after you left that September?

I know you said for example saying to your husband, “I can't do this anymore.” His reaction and just how you dealt also with other people in your life who may have had feelings about your decision.

Shunta Grant: Yeah. I knew I needed to leave that place. I knew also that going to another firm is just like switching from heroin to [insert some other joke], it wasn't going the cure, wasn't go to a different law firm because you're going to have these same problems, they're in the system, they're in the bones of law firm culture so you're not going to get away from them. They may just have different names and faces.

I started looking for jobs that were either of counsel. I applied for some jobs that didn't even require a JD. I just did not want that life anymore. I applied to work at a firm to do their summer associate program and I remember when I interviewed there, they were like, “You're very overqualified. You're going to be working with people who you basically have more experience in.”

I didn't care because at this point I was starting to come to this realization, which so grateful for the beginning of that because now it's all of who I am, of you can choose to live your life based on the story someone has created for you or what someone tells you because of the intellect you have or the skill you have. You can be what they think that should be or you can live your life and realize you're the one who wakes up every morning having to live that life, you're the one who has that cloud over your head on Sunday night.

If you don't like it, change it. You get to choose. You have the power to change. I'm so passionate about that because so many people are out here living life so that it looks like the story that everyone else has pictured for them, that they picture for themselves, or that they think this is the only way to look successful.

I'm going to tell you if you're miserable, you're losing. If you're miserable, you are losing so stop and start winning. For me, it was “I just am not doing this anymore.” I started looking for other positions. I did a few interviews and then here's a plot twist, at this time I had started making these hair bows for my daughter in 2014.

I started getting attention of stores not on purpose again, this wasn't even with a thought of having a business but that was really starting to grow. We were in two stores by 2015, at the beginning of 2015. I had started actually making a website because of the fact that I was selling on Instagram and that was just taking too much time so I needed a website.

I really loved that to my surprise, I did not think of myself as a creative or an artsy person. I thought you were either a logical thinker like a lawyer, an actor, architect, a mathematician, or you're like an artist. I didn't think you get to have both and so that was a surprise for me and I realized this is doing so well that if I gave it all my time, one, I'd be doing something I liked that allowed me to have my own schedule, work from home if I want to, but also there's a potential here to make even more than I'm making here.

It was a no-brainer that at that point when I couldn't find a job that made me excited, that I was excited about because that was the test I said, “I want something that I have on Sunday night the excitement about Monday. I want to love Mondays in a way I never have before.” The only thing that fulfilled that, that was an option to me that I knew of at the time was doing the hair bow company Because of Zoe and so when I left in September, I did that.

I remember when the email went out firm-wide about me leaving, so many people called or emailed me and they were like, “How did you do it? I want out too,” “What did you do? Tell me everything,” or “Oh, my gosh, you're so lucky. I'm strapped here. I'm stuck here.” At least for a year later, people were saying the same message like they felt trapped by those golden handcuffs.

For the people on the inside—and this was firm-wide, people who didn't even know me—were reaching out to me. I thought that was interesting. On my inside circle, my friend saw how happy Because of Zoe my hairbow company was making me and they knew and know that there was nothing that I will say I'm going to do that was not going to happen short of an act of God.

I said I'm going to do this so I'm going to do it and so they had full confidence that she was going to do it. Then some friends were like, “Oh, whoa, hold on, you're our big hope, you're supposed to be the judge. We all had our hopes on you,” and I'm like, “You know what, this route just isn't going to work for me. That's what I thought too.”

Then my mom was very supportive but she also was a mom who’s like, “Are you sure? Do you just want to take some time?” that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, no one else feels that Sunday night dread like I do, no one else is living my life so I made the decision for me because I'm the one who 100% feels all the consequences of every action I take. That's true of each person listening to me.

When I made that decision, it really didn't matter if everybody in my life thought I was crazy. I was going to do it. I'm just fortunate to have people who know that when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it and also could see the way working at the firm made me show up was not who I am. It's not my best. It just was not conducive or a good fit for my life. Why would you continue to do something that you know is literally not a good fit for who you want to be and who you are? It really made it an easy decision after all.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes. Oh my goodness. 100%. One of the things that I tell people all the time is no one else is living your life, you're living your life. Other people can have opinions about what you should or shouldn't be doing but ultimately, you're the one who knows what it's like to do the work that you're doing, to live the life that you're living. If it's not working for you, you're the one who's the expert on that and on what needs to happen in order for you to be able to live the life and be the person that you want to be.

I think that's so important. I think a lot of lawyers—and I speak from experience here, this is 100% speaking from experience—but I think a lot of lawyers, when they first think about leaving, get stuck in that like, “Well, what will people think? Am I throwing it all away?” all of these things.

But I think one of the themes that just comes up over and over in my conversations on this podcast is this idea that that stuff really doesn't matter. Ultimately, when you end up doing the things and living the life that you want and need to be living, you're not going to be sitting around spending a lot of time thinking about what other people think because you're just living your life.

You also mentioned when you gave notice to do this, you heard from a lot of lawyers who were saying basically, “Tell me how you did it. I want to know.” It's been my experience that that's a very common reaction. I think sometimes people think that they're the only ones who is having the feelings that they're having about being a lawyer but that's not true.

I think one of the things that is clear from my conversations with people on this podcast is there are a lot of people who don't like being a lawyer, where it doesn't align with who they want to be and so if you're listening and you feel like you're the only one—and I know there are people out there who feel that way because they contact me and say, “Thank you for this podcast because I thought I was the only one”—you're not the only one.

There are lots of people out there who have the experience that Shunta had, which is like, “This is not working for me. This doesn't align with who I am. I'm going to do something else.” That was fall of 2015. Shunta, can you tell me between then and now what has happened? I know it's a very general question.

Shunta Grant: A lot. Let's see. I left to practice law in September 2015 and at that time, my thought was “I'm just going to do this Because of Zoe full-time,” that's my hair bow company. I did that and then slowly, I noticed people emailing me asking me the same questions about how I grew my business because they'd seen the growth that Because of Zoe had had.

I found myself saying a lot of the same things over and over talking about business, never had a business class, never took business law class, no real business experience outside the fact that I was growing one day by day by trying to figure it out. That slowly over time led to people bringing me in to speak to their audiences to teach them about different aspects of business that I had learned, which then really showed me, “There's something I liked here. I love talking to women, helping them think through their businesses.”

It started out as me helping other women in their business, which then led to me creating an online program for women business owners and leaders. Because I think if you're a leader in someone else's company, in a sense you are an entrepreneur within that role. I created Peace Pace Progress, which is my online program for business owners, and then from there and working with thousands of women, I learned that at the core, 99% of them, what we ended up talking about first and foremost was them and their lives in general, not just business.

I don't think business and life are two parallel roads. They connect, they’re spaghetti noodles so I started a podcast called the Business, Life & Joy podcast, and then I really have transitioned my business now into helping women in general, women who want to no longer self-identify as busy, women who want to live lives of vision, women who want to know what they want, get clear on what they want, and then figure out how do I make that happen in every day.

My business has evolved. I still have Because of Zoe but where I spend most of my time is speaking on stages, being on my podcast, creating content to help women, and now creating a physical product to help women get clear on what they want and then make it happen by being able to show up as their best every single day.

In the process of all that, I also had my second child, my son who is 19 months old. I got to have this wonderful perspective of being a woman, married with no children in corporate America, being a mom in corporate America, being almost like a stay-at-home mom, and then a work-at-home mom. I have this great blend of experiences that allows me to relate to so many different type of women and also understand the different pressures and problems that come from each one of those different scenarios.

I was able to put all of that and create a product where I guess meets women at all those places because I've been there. Currently, I'm a mix of some of those things even now. That's what I spend a lot of my time doing now and it's really, really exciting work. I love Mondays. Actually, Mondays are my slow entry into the weekday. I don't even work on Mondays. It's just a complete 180 from what life used to look like.

Actually, it's very weird when I go back downtown to where the firm is maybe because they've done a lot of construction over there so things look different, that feels to me just as distant as when I think about middle and high school. That's how far distant I feel from that life because I'm such a different person. I'm at such a different place that I sometimes forget that that was a part of my story.

A therapist may say I've repressed it but some days I really do forget, “Oh, I was a lawyer.” I remember that being so important because when I first left, I used to introduce myself as “I used to be a lawyer” because I felt like I needed to still justify that I did have this thing. Now, it's not even something that I talk about really outside of clearly conversations like this one. That's been really cool just to see the transformation for myself and being really fully proud of and thrilled with who I am and what I'm doing today.

Sarah Cottrell: Hey, everyone. I'm super excited to let you know that I've taken all the content from my Free Five-day Career Clarity Bootcamp that I ran in January and put it together in an on-demand program that you can access for free at any time. In this Free Five-day Bootcamp, you'll learn exactly what you want from your career and the next step that you need to take. The feedback I received when I ran this program live in January was incredible. Literally, I had people messaging me, thanking me for running it, telling me it was so helpful, and gave them so many ideas for what to do next. So if that sounds like something that you need, just go to formerlawyer.com/bootcamp and sign up to get access. Now back to the conversation.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, I talk with so many people who have that experience of having their identity as a lawyer be something that they feel like it helps validate them in the eyes of other people and breaking away from that I think is one of the most significant, most important things to do that you need to do if you want to make a change.

Even if you continue as a lawyer or go into a different lawyer role, it's still very important because I think if you're deriving a significant amount of yourself worth and how you feel about yourself from your career or your job, that is a path to nowhere.

Shunta Grant: Absolutely. I always say that's a good point to reflect. For me it was a good point to reflect. Why do I need to keep always saying, “I used to be a lawyer but now I [insert]” I had to ask myself, “Why does that need to be my narrative? Why does that need to be my story?” That took some self-awareness, which I think is one of the most important, if not the most important trait that all humans need who want to be healthy.

It would just come out before I could even stop myself and now, like I say, I am very proud of the work that I do. Even if I'm not doing this work, I'm proud of who I am as a human. Before I'm anything tied to anybody else. Before I'm a wife, a mom, or whatever, none of those things are all of who I am. I think you have to really get back to who are you. Before you say any other thing that relates to another human, who are you is a really important question I think everyone should be able to answer.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that's so true and that's super important insight. If there are women listening and they're like, “I would not like to identify as busy but right now, I definitely would describe myself as busy,” can you tell them a little bit more about the product that you created?

Shunta Grant: Yeah, I'd be happy to. It's called the Best Today® Guide. I love it. It brings me so much joy because of what I know it's going to do in the lives of women. But essentially, it is a paper product. It spans 14 weeks so you would use it for about three months and then reorder another one to continue to use it. It first helps you get clear on what it is you want. It helps you to start casting a vision thinking about the future.

But what it also does is it makes you call yourself out on your stuff. It makes you talk about those things that are the self-destructing things that you do, the things that you have in your life right now that you know have nothing to do with who you want to be or where you want to be, and thinking about how you can start pruning those things.

Then it has a three-step process that you use every single week and every single day. That first step is you review your week every week before it starts. There are two pages for that, one for you to clear your mind before you start thinking about your week, and the second page allows you to look over your week and it's like a breakdown of Monday through Sunday, the most important thing that you need to get done this week, your primary focus for the week. There's a no-distractions box.

All those things that come up in your day that can make you go down the rabbit hole like, “Oh, I forgot that we need new curtains in the living room but the Target have those on sale,” and then you look at the Target app and then an hour later, you've lost that hour and that's really dangerous if you're billing hours, you could just write that down in the no distractions box and come back to it at the end of the day or the end of the week.

That's the first step is just preview your week before the week begins every week. The second step is to review every day the night before and so there's a page to do that as well. I teach you and show you exactly how to do that in a way that actually takes care of you. We highlight when you're going to wake up the next morning, what you're going to do for your morning routine, what you're going to do for your mental, emotional, physical health.

The one most important thing to do that day and then training you to start thinking in terms of results and outcomes as opposed to to-dos. The example I always use is rather than writing down something like “Call the plumber,” that's not actually what you need to do because if you call the plumber, you still have a toilet that doesn't work. What you really need is to confirm that the plumber is coming Thursday by noon, that's the result.

If I can start training women to think that way, it's going to take a lot of clutter off these lists because a lot of people are writing things down that really aren't moving the needle or getting them to the results they want. They're just causing them to do things and that's what leads to busy, just doing: making phone calls, sitting at meetings that you don't need to be in. I want you to start thinking of your life as what are the results and outcomes that I need and only do things that get me there.

Then on the opposite side of that page, you fill out every morning with the Best Today morning practice and that is answering three questions: what does your best look like today? Because what your best looks like today may be different than tomorrow so I want you to think about that every day. What my best looks like when I have the flu might be different than what my best looks like the day I run a marathon.

The second question is what are the self-destructing things that you do? Again, calling yourself out. I am looking here at mine right now and I have these things that I know are self-destructing for me. If I look at that and call it out in the day, what happens is as I find myself going to do that thing, I'm immediately checked and triggered and said, “You know what, I just said this morning at the top of my day this is self-destructive, why would I engage in this activity?”

Whether that's being in your phone too much, being on social media too much, not being present where you are, doubt, worry, fear, distractions, there are so many things that could be on that list for every person. You're writing that down for yourself.

What's also important is, again, it's raising that self-awareness. Because very few people want to talk about the things that they actually need to work on and I'm making you do it every single day at the start of your day. Then the third thing is my vision for the future. Writing out where you want to be, reminding yourself of that every single day, and handwriting that down every single day is a very powerful practice.

Then the last thing is the one thing you're going to do today that progresses you toward that vision for your future. For instance, one of the things I have written on my vision for the future is being a healthy runner who runs with my children as they grow older. That's really important to me because I'm a new runner. One of the things that I'm doing today is simply I'm running four miles today.

I think being able to get really clear on what you want and then starting your day, not in the red by having planned it the night before, and then starting your day thinking about your best and those self-destructive things and your vision is going to transform so many women that I just can't stop talking about this so I'm going to stop because I really could keep going on and on.

Then the other thing you do in the morning is you set your bedtime. It's setting those intentions. Overall the Best Today® Guide is helping women to be proactive and intentional with their time as well because so many people think they don't have enough time. You do have time, you're just not using it well and you're probably spending a lot of it doing stuff that you don't need to be doing and you really don't want to do. This is going to help cure that problem.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that is so brilliant. I'm thinking about people, women who are listening in particular who are still in law firms and feel like they're not in control of their time and even hearing you describe what you're saying, which are simple, not necessarily easy but simple, not time-consuming practices, what would you say to someone who's listening and thinking, “Well, I just don't even have time for that or I don't have enough control over my schedule to even be able to do something like that”?

Shunta Grant: I love that you asked me that because actually on our frequently asked questions page, because I know my audience so well, I am obsessed with my audience that I know the way she thinks, that's one of the questions that I actually put on there like, “I don't have time for this. How am I going to do this if I don't have time for this?”

The answer to that is I want to make it so that you can stop saying that. We want to teach you how to never use that statement again because you have time and what I want to show you is how much time you actually have. When you're proactive, when you're intentional, you're going to be able to accomplish things. What I love about the Best Today® Guide is it’s short, it's simple, it takes less time than waiting for your coffee every morning, which I don't drink coffee which people are surprised by because I'm high off life.

When you have time to sleep at night and you're doing things that fill you up, it's just really reinvigorating. I think for anyone who says, “I don't have time for this,” I want you to order one more than anyone else. Get you the Best Today® Guide because I want to change that because that really isn't true. It's the story you're currently telling yourself and maybe because of the story you're telling yourself, the factors that you're putting in your life or allowing in your life are making that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I am guaranteeing you, 99.9% of you who are listening that think you don't have a lot of time, because that was me and I used to use the B word as I call it the dirty four-letter word busy all the time until I realized that was something I had, that was a story I had told myself, and then I constructed a life around it and it's very dangerous and I want to stop that, I just want you to trust me and walk through this process with me and I can show you that you actually do have the time.

But first, let's see what you're actually spending that time on because the work you do at the beginning where we talk about looking at what you're actually spending your time doing, there are so many things that I know so many of you can prune. You just are afraid of what happens when you say no and you have to stop thinking that way. Because when you're saying yes to someone else, you're a lot of times saying no to things that are much more important to you in your life.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that's so true and in fact, I was talking with the members of my small group program this week about how sometimes, we're afraid to do work that seems really simple because we want to distract ourselves from what the answers will be because we're afraid of what that means for us in terms of who we are as a person, in terms of what our priorities are, and yet it's so important.

The other thing I wanted to touch on briefly, which I just think is a super important topic, it's actually come up a couple of times recently in interviews and it was a very important realization for me, which is the importance of sleep. I know people are probably like, “Okay, Sarah.” But for me realizing I need eight hours of sleep a night and I need to do what I need to do to make that happen, obviously, you can't control everything, I also have a 19-month-old and a four-year-old so there was a period not that long ago where that was not necessarily happening perfectly.

I don't think that people fully understand how much that can impact your productivity, your outlook. For me, just accepting that I'm not a person you can get six hours of sleep a night and function well, most people actually are not, but anyway, that's a side note, has made a huge difference. Again, some of the people in my small group program, one of their biggest challenges right now with their jobs as lawyers is basically they're not getting enough sleep and that's something that they recognize as being a huge problem.

I'm not sure that everyone has the self-awareness to realize that that is a huge factor in the quality of your life that needs to change basically if you have the ability to change it and it's not where it needs to be.

Shunta Grant: Yeah, and we're all adults probably who are listening so you have the ability to change it, you just may be uncomfortable with what that means you have to do. I have friends, very few now, who are still in the law firm life and it has not changed. Like I said, it's in the bones of the culture of law firms. Even those who try, it's just very challenging.

If you can't care enough for yourself to get the rest that you need, first of all, no one else is going to care more than you. Not your spouse, not your best friend, and they could care but you are the person who could do something about it. Definitely not your boss or co-workers. You are the person who has to be your first and best advocate first and foremost here on this earth.

If you're not willing to do what needs to be done for your own mental, emotional, physical health, which is why we talk about all three in the Best Today® Guide, who is? Because no one else is living, again, those consequences of your choices but you so it's so important. Sleep is very important.

There was something else you said that made me think of something and I've already forgot what it was but I just can't say enough, if you could change the narrative you are telling yourself, first you have to acknowledge that you're telling yourself a narrative, we all are, it's just is it a healthy, accurate, and true one or not, but you telling yourself you don't have time for [insert] that I'll sleep later or as soon as I get over this thing or once I do this, those are all lies that are helping you cope with being miserable and I want to wake you up today and let you know that you have full autonomy over your life.

If you are not listening to this in a jail cell or bound in a hospital bed, you have full autonomy over your life and you get to decide whether or not you're going to exercise it, if you're going to find every excuse or if you're going to find solutions. I even tell my seven-year-old, “Don't come to mommy with a problem. Let's talk about solutions.” It might be yeah, you can't reach the shelf but you can come to me and say, “Mom, I noticed something's on the shelf that I'm going to need help with, either you helping me get it or I'm going to have to get a stool.”

Because now we're talking about how we can solve the problem. But if we spend our energy focused on the problem, when are you going to do something about it? That's for every human. It bothers me to no end to the point that I'm trying to train a seven-year-old not to become the adult who walks around complaining about the problems as opposed to finding the solutions to them.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I think it's so important what you said, which is we're all telling ourselves some set of stories. We all are. If you're not aware of the stories you're telling yourself and examining them, then they are holding you back in some way. That is, especially I think for lawyers, super important.

I'm sure there are some people listening who are thinking, “Oh, yes. I would love to leave my lawyer job if I knew that I was going to start and run multiple successful businesses like Shunta but she has some special thing that I don't have and that's not something that I could do.” I know that there are people listening who are having some variation of that thought so what would you say to those people?

Shunta Grant: I have zero technical business experience. I never took a business class, a business course. I sat at my dining room table and I started making hair bows and that one decision has me sitting in this chair talking to you. Stop thinking that you need to have 100 steps because you're not going to get to them if you don't take 1.

I just was talking about this the other day, you have to get started where you are and that thing will become the thing that leads to the next thing that leads to the next thing. Notice when I even left the practice of law, it was just to continue to do Because of Zoe. I didn't see any of what I'm doing now in the horizon and it's so much better than what I could have imagined.

But if I hadn't gotten started with where I was, with what I had, which was some cheap scissors, some not expensive fabric at the time, and YouTube, that's what I started with, and guess what, you have all three of those things, it doesn't have to be literal, you don't need to go get fabric but you have something. Again, don't tell yourself the story because that's an excuse we do, “Oh, well, they had this, I don't have that.”

You're right, you don't have what I have, you have something even better. You have what you have and you have to figure out how you use that to get started and just take the next step. Again, I didn't know that I would be sitting here in this chair talking to you. I didn't know that this physical product that I love was in the horizon. I did not know.

I didn't know so many things, and guess what, five years from now, I'm going to be sitting telling the same story saying in 2020, I didn't know that this was up next, that's the beautiful and exciting part. What you're responsible for is taking the next step and then allowing the good that will come from that and the hard.

Let me be clear, it has not been a straight sunshine path growing these businesses. There have been times where I've tried things and it has just been a complete failure and failure in that it didn't work out the way I wanted to but also a success in that I learned something from that to become better.

I want to be clear and this is why on Insta Stories every day, I am very transparent about the highs and the lows of being a business owner and really being anything, being a human because I don't want to give off the thought that, “Oh, I just left the law firm and then all these millions started falling into my pockets in my bank account,” no, that's not the story. The story is I found something I love to do, I started doing it, I want it to be excellent and better every day, and that led to more opportunities that led to more opportunities that led to more opportunities.

It allowed me to serve more people in different ways that matter to me. That's not going to happen for you with you complaining or pointing at other people. It's going to happen for you when you decide to take the next step and trust that there's going to be another step there when you're ready to take the next one. That would be my answer and my advice to that person who's thinking that way.

Sarah Cottrell: I completely agree and I think that's super important for people to realize. Shunta, as we're getting close to the end of the conversation, is there anything else that you would like to share that we have not talked about yet?

Shunta Grant: I think that really sums it up. I just want every person listening, whether you decide to stay in the practice of law and maybe just shift what that looks like, or whether you decide to do something completely different, remember, I left billable hours for making hair bows, you can do whatever, I just want you to make sure that what you are doing every day when you wake up, when you're using that inhale and exhale that is a gift that someone does not have, that you're making account, that you are being true to yourself and not trying to be anybody else's hashtag goals, that you're not trying to fulfill someone else's dreams for you, including maybe your own.

I had dreams of, like I said, being a law professor or a judge and you can change. You have the power to change. That's my message also for you. I want to give you permission in case you need it, which you don't, but in case you think you do, here's your permission to change. Every day you get a chance to do that. I could change today and say, “You know what, actually what I want to do, I think I want to become an acrobat. I'm going to start taking some classes.”

You get to choose. You get to change. Don't let anyone make you think or feel differently. If someone does, that might be an indication that it's time to start doing some pruning in your circle. Also, just for anyone who's interested with the Best Today® Guide and wants to pre-order one, I want you to make sure you don't give yourself a reason why things won't work for you because if that's the case, that's again, going to be the narrative, going to be the story that you're telling yourself over and over and over again.

Those will be the things. I just want to remind people that they have the power to change and that all you need to know is to take a step. You don't have to see the whole plan. I don't know what the whole plan is for the next five years. I have some ideas of what I'd like to see happen but I also know that I like what has happened over these last five years way better than what I planned.

I'm just going to show up as my best and let the rest unfold and I want to give you permission to do the same. If you'd like to order our Best Today® Guide, you can do so by going to besttodayguide.com.

Sarah Cottrell: I love that. I think that's such good advice. Shunta, if people want to connect with you online, where can they find you and then if they're interested in the product, can you just share the URL one more time? And of course, I'll also put it in the show notes.

Shunta Grant: Yeah. Well, I love hanging out on Instagram. It's my favorite place to hang out. I'm there every day in the stories and I'm @shuntagrant and then the Best Today® Guide is at besttodayguide.com and you can also join our Facebook page which will have lots of videos, content to help you actually use the product and you can get there by just going to shuntagrant.com/bestpage.

Sarah Cottrell: That's so great. Thank you so much for joining me today, Shunta, I really loved hearing your story and I know that what you've shared is going to be really helpful to people.

Shunta Grant: Thank you, and thank you for the work that you do because it's so interesting that there really is a subset of people within this profession in the legal space who need this message that you're putting out through your podcast. So thank you for the work that you do.

Sarah Cottrell: Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening today. I absolutely love getting to share these stories with you. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the show, and come on over to formerlawyer.com and join our community to get even more support and resources in your journey out of the law. Until next time. Have a great week.